Jacobsen is on the faculty of Northern Kentucky University. In the following essay, she discusses teaching "Rape Fantasies" as a means of opening discussion on the sensitive topic of rape, a topic which students of both sexes find both interesting and disturbing.

Margaret Atwood's poems and short story in Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar's The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women (1985) lend themselves to themes of identity that may be discussed in a women's studies or a general studies literature course. My course, American Women Poets, is a women's studies course, but a majority of students of both sexes enroll because it carries general studies credit. Because Northern Kentucky University is largely a commuter college, the average age of students is twenty-six. Displaced homemakers and the occasional grandmother leaven the ideas of recent high school graduates, making class discussions a yeasty mix. Focusing on themes of identity...